Bug Encyclopedia
Search and identify bugs & insects — beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, bees, spiders and more — with size, habitat, danger, behavior, and how to tell them apart.
Nursery Web Spider
Named for the silken nursery tent females weave to guard their hatching young, this slender, long-legged spider carries her large egg sac beneath her body in her fangs until the eggs are ready to hatch.
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Tube Web Spider
A sleek, cylindrical spider that lives inside a silk-lined tube and dashes out to seize insects that stumble across its radiating trip-lines.
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Sydney Funnel-web Spider
Glossy black and heavily built, with large fangs held ready in front of its face, the Sydney funnel-web spider shelters in a silk-lined burrow in moist, shaded ground across the Sydney region, one of Australia's most distinctive ground-dwelling spiders.
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Mesh Web Weaver
A tiny, easily overlooked spider that spins a loose, bluish tangle of fuzzy silk over twig tips and seed heads to snare small insects.
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Pirate Spider
A stealthy, spider-eating specialist that sneaks onto another spider's web, plucks the silk to mimic trapped prey, and ambushes the unsuspecting owner.
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Sac Spider
A pale, uniformly colored spider that spins a small silk sac retreat rather than a capture web, often found tucked into rolled leaves or corners of rooms.
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Barn Spider
A brownish, mottled orb weaver famous as the inspiration for Charlotte's Web, commonly found spinning large nightly webs on barns, porches, and other structures.
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Garden Spider
A large, strikingly patterned orb weaver with a black-and-yellow abdomen and a bold zigzag band of silk woven into the center of its web, making it one of the most recognizable garden spiders.
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Wolf Spider
A robust, hairy, ground-dwelling spider with excellent night vision and a habit of chasing down prey rather than trapping it in a web; females are often seen carrying an egg sac or a back full of spiderlings.
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Wandering Spider
A large, fast-moving hunter that forages actively at night across leaf litter and low vegetation instead of relying on a web to catch its meals.
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Cobweb Spider
A common household spider that spins a messy, three-dimensional tangle of silk in dark corners and drags entangled insects up into the maze to feed.
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Grass Spider
Best known for the shimmering, dew-covered funnel webs that appear across lawns on autumn mornings, grass spiders are swift, striped runners that dash into a silken tunnel the instant prey - or a threat - approaches.
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Jorō Spider
A large, strikingly colored East Asian orb weaver with yellow-and-blue-gray banding, now spreading rapidly across the southeastern United States and building enormous golden webs.
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Hobo Spider
A fast-running, brown funnel-web spider with a chevron pattern down its abdomen, the hobo spider builds a flat, non-sticky sheet web that narrows into a tunnel retreat where it waits for prey.
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Wall Spider
A tiny, flattened spider that spins a small disc-shaped web hugging the surface of a wall and darts sideways in a quick, erratic dash when disturbed.
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Cellar Spider
A pale, long-legged spider that builds loose, irregular webs in dark corners and is famous for rapidly vibrating in its web when disturbed, causing it to blur into an indistinct shape.
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Cave Spider
A long-legged orb weaver adapted to the twilight zone of caves, spinning large webs across cavern mouths and dangling its egg sacs from silk threads deep within the darkness.
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Green Lynx Spider
A slender, bright green spider armed with long spiny legs that ambushes insects from flowers and shrubs without spinning a capture web.
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Funnel Weaver Spider
Nearly invisible until dew or morning frost outlines it in silver, the funnel weaver's sheet-and-tunnel web is a familiar sight across lawns and gardens, with its owner watching from the safety of a silken tube.
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Lace Weaver Spider
A stocky, mottled spider that spins a distinctive bluish, woolly-looking lace-like web across bark and wall crevices to snare passing insects.
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Orb Weaver Spider
A stout-bodied spider best known for spinning the classic, near-perfect circular "orb" web strung between plants, eaves, or fences, often rebuilt fresh each night.
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Common House Spider
Tucked into a messy tangle of silk in a quiet corner, the common house spider is one of the most familiar indoor spiders, quietly picking off flies and other small insects that blunder into its web.
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Black Widow Spider
A glossy black, globe-bodied spider best known for the red or orange hourglass marking on the underside of the female's rounded abdomen, usually found tucked in a tangled web near ground level.
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Banded Garden Spider
A large orb weaver with a silvery, banded abdomen striped in yellow and black, spinning a distinctive zigzag stabilimentum through the center of its web.
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